


wonder if you’d say you were sad to leave

by featherx



Series: requests [18]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Demons, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Cat Ears, Implied/Referenced Past Sexual Abuse, M/M, Minor Caspar von Bergliez/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert, Praise Kink, Rimming, top mbyleth/bottom linhardt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:34:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24164452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/pseuds/featherx
Summary: Honestly, Linhardt likes cats, because they’re soft and fluffy, and cats like him, because whenever he drops by Ashe’s apartment and takes a nap on the couch, he wakes up with three fat cats napping on his face, chest, and stomach. So Linhardt supposes he could be called a cat person.In lieu of responding, the fluffy ears atop the demon’s head twitch in what Linhardt is fairly sure is acknowledgement. He saysfairly sure,because Linhardt has seen Meatloaf do the exact same thing whenever Ashe dangles some treats in his face.Of all demons, Linhardthadto get the one with cat ears and a tail.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/My Unit | Byleth
Series: requests [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1388335
Comments: 16
Kudos: 153





	wonder if you’d say you were sad to leave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saintcethlin (doyounqk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doyounqk/gifts).



> prompt: explore my wildest dreams  
> ... so here it is. almost 17,000 words of catboy sex demon byleth and his massive dick. let's fucking GOOOOO
> 
> inspired by [the illustration here, obviously](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beleth)  
> EDIT: [CATBOY BYLETH BY @LACRYEM!!!!!](https://twitter.com/lacryem/status/1266524855874260998)  
> EDIT 2: [CATBOY BYLETH #2 BY REN!!!!!](https://twitter.com/vanitashours/status/1279787779984166914) thank you both so much im gonna cry 😭
> 
> title from [sideways](https://open.spotify.com/track/7gcaFO43gzlBELx9gs6fZR?si=UZNmTE8vR6elBCS6E6rnbg), because it's not a PWP college AU if it isn't titled after a marian hill song

Caspar picks up at the second ring. “Hey, Lin!” he greets, cheery as always. “What’s up? Did I leave something at the dorm?”

“Oh, uh…” Linhardt clears his throat. He hadn’t thought about what to say before pressing Caspar’s number on his phone, and now he has to think of a tactful way to open up the problem. After almost five seconds of silence, he gives up and goes with, “There’s a demon in the room.”

Predictably, Caspar laughs. “So, like, did a stray cat follow you in or something? I’ll help you out with it when I get back! I’ll just be another twenty minutes, okay? See ya!”

Linhardt stares down at his phone. When something shuffles behind him, he whirls around and raises the paper cutter he’d used, its blade still red with his blood. “Oh, no, you stay _right_ there. Don’t take another step.”

The aforementioned demon in the room looks put out, but obediently stays in place. “Then what do I do?”

“You…” Linhardt looks him up and down, trying not to show how shaky his grip is. “Uh… uhh… just… just stay still. Don’t move. Got it?”

Thinking about it, Caspar hadn’t been wrong when he thought a stray cat wandered into the dorm room. Honestly, Linhardt likes cats, because they’re soft and fluffy, and cats like him, because whenever he drops by Ashe’s apartment and takes a nap on the couch, he wakes up with three fat cats napping on his face, chest, and stomach. So Linhardt supposes he could be called a cat person.

In lieu of responding, the fluffy ears atop the demon’s head twitch in what Linhardt is fairly sure is acknowledgement. He says _fairly sure,_ because Linhardt has seen Meatloaf do the exact same thing whenever Ashe dangles some treats in his face.

Of all demons, Linhardt _had_ to get the one with cat ears and a tail.

“So…” Caspar leans in. “What kind of demon are you anyway?”

Byleth doesn’t actually look like much of a demon. In fact, aside from the cat parts, he looks… pretty human. Tall, blue hair, blue eyes, tan skin. Unfairly perfect bone structure. Long fingers. Muscles. He shrugs broad shoulders at Caspar’s question and says, “Just another demon.”

Polite, too. Linhardt adds that to the slowly-growing list of things he knows about Byleth. “But the ears…”

“Oh, these?” Byleth’s cat ears twitch again. Linhardt has to hold himself back from touching them—they just look so _fluffy._ “Before I adopted a human form, I was more… beast-like. These stayed. Along with the tail.”

Right. Linhardt has seen a few illustrations of Byleth in his research, and almost all of them depicted him as some kind of monster with vaguely cat-like features. “I can make them disappear too, if you like,” Byleth adds, the ears and tail vanishing in a blink. “It takes energy out of me if I keep them in for too long, though.”

“Oh, well—it’s fine. You don’t have to. You’re not going out, anyway.”

Byleth looks relieved when the ears and tail pop back out. “Thank you. But if I’m not going to do anything, then why did you summon me?”

Linhardt sighs. “How many times do I have to tell you—I didn’t summon you _on purpose._ And I’m looking for a way to send you back home, so just sit tight a little longer and we’ll both be out of each other’s hair before we know it.”

For some reason, Byleth looks skeptical, but he obediently sits back and says nothing.

“I think they’re cute,” Caspar, king of defeating toxic masculinity, declares. He reaches over and pats Byleth’s head like he would a cat, and Byleth actually leans in his hand. Also like a cat. “How’d you summon him in the first place, Lin?”

“I dropped the paper cutter.” Linhardt holds the cutter up. He’s long since wiped his blood off of it, because looking at it made him slightly sick, but it still looks as menacing as ever. “And some of my blood fell on my book on demonology, on the page with this guy’s summoning circle. Just my luck, I guess.”

But Caspar’s barely listening anymore, scratching Byleth’s head and cooing, “Aww, good kitty, good kitty. You want a treat?”

Byleth’s tail rises in the air. Linhardt blinks—when Ashe’s cats do that, it means they’re _happy._ “Treat?” Byleth repeats.

“No,” Linhardt says, before Caspar even shoots him the pleading look. “No, Caspar.”

“Come on. Just one! I ate a cat treat and _I_ didn’t die from it!” Caspar’s already jumped to his feet and opened the drawer where he keeps a few emergency cat treats in case Ashe brings Meatloaf or Burrito over. He grabs one of the small fish-shaped biscuits and hands it over to Byleth. “Here, dude. Try some! Maybe you’ll like it!”

For some reason, Byleth looks over at Linhardt as if for permission, so Linhardt shakes his head. Byleth looks disappointed. Linhardt shakes his head harder. “No,” he says again, for good measure.

Byleth sighs and looks away. “I’m fine,” he says, giving the cat treat in Caspar’s hand a wistful look.

“Aw, come on, Lin, you’re no fun.” Caspar pouts. “It’s one treat, it won’t hurt!”

Linhardt sighs. “Fine.” He’s not sure why Byleth is looking to _him_ for permission, because it’s not as if Linhardt is his master or anything… or is he? He _did_ summon him here, after all. Maybe Linhardt has some measure of control over his actions, being his summoner. Hmm.

Byleth snatches up the treat before Linhardt even notices. He chews slowly and contemplatively for a few seconds, staring off into space. “How is it?” Caspar asks.

“…“

Byleth jumps up and makes a grab for the drawer. It takes them five minutes to wrestle Byleth away from the treats before he can finish them all.

“What do you do as a demon?” Linhardt asks, one slow, sunny afternoon. His professor had canceled the class for today, so he’s got nothing to do for well over six hours until his class later that night. Caspar is out at the gym again, leaving only him and Byleth in the dorm room.

Byleth lounges around on his mattress on the floor before responding. “Whatever my summoner requests.”

“Really? Could you give me a million dollars?”

Byleth’s tail flicks. “Done.”

Linhardt blinks. “Huh?” Then his phone buzzes, and he tentatively picks it up—there’s a new email from PayPal that he reflexively swipes open. The number of zeroes that flash on the screen almost has him jumping off the bed. “What the hell?”

“You asked for it?”

“I didn’t think you were _serious,_ ” Linhardt says, blanching. What if his account gets suspended because of such a ludicrously high transaction? “Um… can you… ah, can you donate it to some charity groups, or whatever they’re called? I don’t need this much money. Father makes enough.”

Byleth stares off into space for a moment, his eyes glossing over, before he nods. “Done. Don’t worry about your account being suspended, I took care of that too.”

Just to make sure, Linhardt checks his balance history, and sighs a little when he sees the money spread out to a variety of different organizations, some of which he recognizes from the Internet. Well, it certainly feels good to be nice, but a million dollars as pocket money would have been great too… “So how do I get you back home? If you happen to know anything, that is, because my research hasn’t been very helpful.” The information Linhardt actually needs is in the Dark Net, a place he’d rather not get his poor laptop into, lest it catch a virus or five.

Byleth shrugs. “I’m not sure myself. My past summoners were very clear about what they wanted and when I could leave, though.”

Past summoners? Linhardt perks up at that, pushing himself up into a sitting position at the edge of his bed. “What did they usually do, then?” If he can get any insights on what past summoners asked Byleth for, maybe he can get some insights on how to send him back too.

Without a hint of shyness, Byleth says, “Sex.”

Linhardt nearly topples off the bed. “Say _what?_ ”

“Sex,” Byleth patiently repeats. “Our kind is quite common. My selling point, however, is that I am happy to give my summoner all the love they command until they are satisfied.”

“Ooookay,” Linhardt says, “that’s nice.”

“Would you like me to show you?” Byleth asks, sitting up as well. His tail is swaying from side to side in a manner Linhardt recognizes as being _excited,_ of all things—or at least focused and interested.

Linhardt falters. He is suddenly very, very aware he’s only wearing a thin shirt and pajama shorts right now, and that Byleth, for all his strangeness, is very attractive. “Show me…?”

Unfortunately, Byleth seems to take that as a command, because he nods seriously and shuffles forward on his knees, reaching out to grip Linhardt’s legs gently but firmly. “What would you like me to do…” He pauses, tilting his head, ears flopping a little. “Master?”

“Oh, no,” Linhardt says, ignoring the sudden rush of blood from his brain straight down to his dick. “No, no, no, no, do not, do _not_ call me that. Just—Just my name is fine. And—And you don’t have to show me! Or do me! Or—Or anything!” he rambles, feeling himself get dizzier and dizzier with every word. It probably has something to do with how Byleth is still holding his knees, how Byleth still has his head between Linhardt’s thighs.

Byleth looks put out again. “I don’t like being summoned for nothing. And you’ve been tired lately. Let me do something.”

He noses the inside of Linhardt’s thigh, nudging the fabric of his shorts up slightly, and every rational thought flies straight out of Linhardt’s head at the sight. “Th… uh… fine,” Linhardt gives in—it’s pointless to ignore the bulge in his crotch any longer, besides. “Just… a little…”

Byleth doesn’t hesitate—he pulls Linhardt’s shorts out of the way, gives his underwear an assessing look, then lightly mouths around Linhardt’s erection through the fabric. Linhardt makes a small, embarrassing noise, pushing his hips closer—Byleth indulges him, kissing and licking and even sucking lightly over the fabric until Linhardt impatiently mutters, “Come on…”

“As you wish,” Byleth murmurs, tugging his underwear off and freeing Linhardt’s now fully-hard and distinctly damp cock. Another long, considering stare, until he suddenly, abruptly takes Linhardt into his mouth without any more foreplay—Linhardt almost jerks off the bed, panting loudly as Byleth laps up the pre-come on the tip of his dick first before beginning to bob his head up and down his cock.

He’s gripping onto Linhardt’s bare thighs now, and when Linhardt moans softly, his hands move to squeeze his ass. “B— _Byleth,_ shit,” Linhardt gasps, the sheets twisting under his grip. “Ah… mm, h-hah…”

He gives his hips an experimental roll, seeing how Byleth reacts, but Byleth looks entirely focused on his task and barely even blinks. Linhardt tries again, harder this time, and again and again until his cock hits the back of Byleth’s throat with every other movement, and there’s still no sign of discomfort from the demon. He _doesn’t have a gag reflex._ “This is fine?” Linhardt manages to ask, in between muffled moans. “You’re not…?”

Byleth shakes his head, just enough movement for it to be understandable. Linhardt swallows, his mouth painfully dry. “Then, can you… ah…”

Byleth nods again, his lips moving further down Linhardt’s cock. Linhardt curses, bucking his hips upwards, his eyes fluttering closed in pleasure as he feels Byleth’s throat tighten around the head of his dick. Byleth pulls back, tongue flicking at the tip again, then sinks all the way back down to take all of Linhardt in without hesitation.

“ _Byleth,_ oh,” Linhardt groans, barely aware he’s coming until Byleth is drawing back, white fluid smeared across his swollen lips.

Linhardt blinks blearily, weariness settling immediately on his person—he falls back on the bed, propping himself up on shaky elbows, as Byleth daintily licks his lips clean like a cat cleaning itself. “That… uh…”

“Was that satisfactory?” Byleth asks, voice perfectly monotone.

“Huh? I-I mean, I guess—” Linhardt sits up. “Ah, that’s right. You can… go back now, can’t you?” A shame. Not that sending Byleth back hadn’t been his end goal from the start, but Linhardt would have liked a little more time to ask Byleth about everything related to demons. Being a bio student in college meant he had little time to pursue his other interests, after all.

Byleth stares at him. “Only if you are content.”

“I guess I am,” Linhardt says, although that’s an understatement. He’s perfectly content to go to sleep right now in the middle of the afternoon, for one thing. “But… you… don’t want anything?”

“What do you mean?” Byleth asks, looking genuinely confused.

“Well, usually I do something in return for a blowjob,” Linhardt dryly explains. “I can suck you off too, if you like. Is there something else you want, though?”

Byleth shakes his head. “I’m fine.” When Linhardt discreetly peers down the bed and at Byleth’s crotch, he has to grudgingly admit that he doesn’t look anywhere close to being hard, which is a bit of a shame. “I typically don’t get aroused unless I have to.”

Curiosity piqued, Linhardt inches forward while absently fixing his clothes. “You get hard on command?”

“Yes.” As soon as the word leaves Byleth’s mouth, Linhardt sees a tent in his loose trousers form, and Linhardt has to keep himself from staring too obviously—it looks _big._ Big enough that Linhardt’s not sure if that thing can fit anywhere without ripping a person in half. “But it bothers me,” Byleth mumbles, his cheeks beginning to redden, “so unless it’s necessary, I try not to… do it…”

Linhardt blinks. “You can’t _soften_ on command, can you?”

Byleth wordlessly shakes his head.

“Oh. So clearly… you need a bit of help with that, then, don’t you?”

Byleth is silent, but his tail is swishing back and forth in the air, and he can’t seem to meet Linhardt’s eyes. Linhardt feels a grin coming on and does his best to squash it before he looks like he’d planned this. “Come sit up here.”

“But—”

“ _I_ want to do this,” Linhardt interrupts, already sliding off his bed and nudging Byleth to take his place, “so don’t worry too much. Anyway, I’m a little curious how _you_ react.”

Again, Byleth says nothing, but obediently climbs up the bed while Linhardt kneels in front of him on the floor. Linhardt gives his still-clothed erection a considering look before undoing the buttons and pulling both Byleth’s pants and underwear off in one tug—and, _oh,_ okay, _alright,_ Linhardt hadn’t been expecting that at _all._

Byleth shifts awkwardly on his seat. “You don’t have to,” he mutters. “My past summoners rarely got much satisfaction for themselves doing… this over penetration. So—”

“Oh, we’ll get to penetration later,” Linhardt cuts in, too distracted by the long, thick cock before him, already leaking beads of pre-cum at the tip, and though he can’t say for certain, he just knows it’s casting a shadow over his face like something straight out of a dream. What kind of idiot summoned a demon for sex and then _didn’t_ want to suck his dick dry?

More than that… how would this feel inside him? Linhardt swallows, mouth suddenly dry. How would it feel entering him, filling him up, fucking into him until this cock was the only thing he could think of?

“Please don’t stare,” Byleth mumbles, for the first time sounding shy.

“Right. Sorry. Give me a moment.” Linhardt stares a little longer anyway, at the bulging veins and leaking head. He doesn’t want to move just yet—this is a sight he wants to keep in mind a little bit longer. “Do you mind fucking my mouth?”

“Do I mind… what?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know.” Linhardt takes Byleth’s wrist and positions his hand so that it’s resting above Linhardt’s head. “Don’t worry about choking me or anything, just push down so that it feels like you’re forcing me. And then… you know,” Linhardt says, waving a hand in the air, “just, like, use me or something. Oh, you can pull my hair too.”

And then, before Byleth can look any more confused, Linhardt tucks his hair behind his ears and wraps his lips around Byleth’s cock.

He’s almost too thick for Linhardt to handle at first—his jaw isn’t used to this size, compared to the rest of the decidedly human partners he’s had in the past, and at first Linhardt has to adjust to get used to it. Once he does, though, he chances a look up at Byleth’s face; his blush has spread all the way down his neck, and he’s brought one hand up to muffle the low sound that escapes his mouth.

How cute. Linhardt nudges his hand, and Byleth blinks before tentatively pushing Linhardt further down his cock. Linhardt moans around his mouthful, doing his best to keep his eyes open and fixed on Byleth’s so he can watch how Byleth looks—his own eyes are wide, his face flushed, and he’s starting to pant a little. _Harder,_ Linhardt tries to communicate, and surprisingly enough Byleth obeys, pushing his head down _hard._

Linhardt sinks down his thick cock, lips stretched obscenely wide around it, groaning when Byleth’s fingers tangle in his hair to grip tight and _pull_ him back up. Linhardt doesn’t try to fight it, following the movement, feeling his eyes dampen from tears as Byleth shoves him back down until the bulging head of his cock is pressed up against Linhardt’s throat, pre-cum mixing with the saliva that drips down his chin.

“Do you like this?” Byleth’s asking, voice more unsure than anything.

Linhardt shakily draws away, a string of drool connecting his mouth to Byleth’s dripping cock, and gives himself a second to readjust his jaw before nodding. “I’ll hit you if I don’t, alright? Don’t worry.”

He leans into Byleth’s hand on his head again, and Byleth’s grip tightens in his hair to force Linhardt back down on his dick. Linhardt moans again, his eyes on the verge of rolling back in his head—Byleth pushes and pushes and _pushes_ until Linhardt’s nose is buried in the dark, wiry hair at the base of his groin and Byleth’s cock is rubbing up against his throat, hard and long and so, so _big._

With a harsh gasp, Byleth keeps Linhardt’s head in place and starts fucking his mouth, fast and careless, his cock hitting the back of Linhardt’s throat with every other thrust. Linhardt slackens his jaw and lets Byleth use him, the tears that pooled in his eyes spilling down his cheeks. Then, too quickly for Linhardt to process, Byleth pulls him off himself—Linhardt doesn’t even have time to ask why before Byleth is taking his cock in hand and stroking once, twice, then coming all over Linhardt’s face.

Linhardt whimpers, shutting his eyes but keeping his mouth open for hot cum to drip onto his tongue. “Does it taste good?” Byleth asks, voice breathy. “Do you like it?”

“Mm… mhh…” Linhardt shifts forward, licking up the few stray drops of cum on Byleth’s softening cock; he’s barely able to keep his eyes open now. “Y… eah—yeah. Yes. Yeah. Can you… Can you, on the bed…”

Byleth slides off the bed, legs wobbly but working, and neatly lifts Linhardt up in his arms. Linhardt lets his head loll against Byleth’s chest with a little sigh as Byleth deposits him back onto his bed. “Hey, clean up the mess you made on me, will you,” Linhardt mumbles, making himself comfortable stop the wrinkled sheets. “There’s tissue… somewhere…”

“Don’t need it.” Byleth hovers above Linhardt, looking uncertain for a second, before he bends down and—Linhardt’s eyes fly wide open and awake—starts licking the cum off his face.

“W-W-What—”

“It’s just cum,” Byleth says, as if that’s any explanation. “Relax. It saves on tissue anyway.”

Out of lack of things to do, Linhardt lies back and lets Byleth lap up the mess on his face. His tongue is ticklish, but it isn’t rough like that of actual cats’. Which is good, because then Linhardt’s dick probably wouldn’t be in such a great state otherwise. “You care more about saving on resources than half the humans on the planet,” Linhardt idly notes.

“No resources, no humans, no summoners.”

“But what do you—” Linhardt bites back a yelp when Byleth licks his lips; it’s probably the worst kiss Linhardt’s ever received, and that says a lot. Like this, though, he can feel the warmth of Byleth’s tongue more than ever, and when he dips just slightly into Linhardt’s mouth, brushing against his teeth, Linhardt squirms and draws back. “E-Easy, easy.”

Byleth frowns slightly, but obeys—his tongue swipes over one last drop on the tip of Linhardt’s nose before he pulls away and sits back on the edge of the bed. “What were you saying?”

What _was_ Linhardt saying? “Whatever. Uh… I’m going to sleep… can you wake me up at, err. Seven?”

“Okay.”

“Oh, wait—” Linhardt sits up slightly when Byleth slides off the bed and flops onto his mattress on the floor. “You can sleep here, you know. With me. Pretty common courtesy.”

Byleth looks confused. “Really? My past summoners never wanted it.”

“Oh,” Linhardt murmurs, softly. Byleth doesn’t look bothered about what he’d just said, but for some reason the words sound lonely. “Well, uh… if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. But if you do…”

Byleth shrugs and curls up on his mattress, tail resting atop his thigh. Linhardt looks down at him for another few seconds before he sighs and falls back on his pillow.

“I’m heading out.” Linhardt yawns, stretching his arms over his head. So much for enjoying his weekend. “I have to pick some papers up from my professor. Be nice and stay in here like always, okay? If you behave, you can have a treat.”

Byleth doesn’t look at him, but his ears twitch in acknowledgement. “Okay.”

The cat treats are a pretty surefire way of getting Byleth to do literally anything short of harming Linhardt, as they had discovered shortly after feeding him the first time around. He usually listens to whatever Linhardt says anyway, but it’s always nice to have some backup bribery material.

“Thanks. I have some other errands to run, too—” Buying more of the cat treats, for one—“so Caspar might be back before me. There’s food on the dresser if you want anything.”

“Okay.”

It seems to be the only thing Byleth’s interested in saying—he’s playing with Caspar’s old Nintendo DS, and last Linhardt had checked, he’d been trying to look for a Glameow in Pokemon Platinum. Good luck to him with that. Linhardt had never found one in his own game. “See you, then.”

Linhardt sighs when he closes the door behind him. As far as they can tell, Byleth is almost suspiciously low-maintenance—he takes care of himself so well, they’d really only needed to bring in the mattress and buy some extra food when grocery shopping. Even then, it looks like Byleth subsists mainly on… well, nothing, because he never seems to be hungry, and he only ever eats when he’s curious about some food he hasn’t tried before. Linhardt’s current theory is that he lives off cum or something.

The thought has his face feeling hot. Right—he hasn’t spoken to Byleth about _that_ since it had happened, and though Linhardt isn’t usually the shy type, he can’t think of how to casually bring up, “Hey, we exchanged blowjobs because I thought that would help with finding a way to send you back home, but now I think I want more because I kind of don’t want you to leave yet?” Because if Linhardt’s being honest, summoning a sex demon and then _not_ asking him for more sex—especially when his dick is _that huge_ —sort of sounds like a waste.

Another sigh—he’ll have to mull over this more later, when he isn’t distracted. Hopefully Linhardt can work out a solution that sounds nice to everyone involved.

Some exhausting errands later, Linhardt trudges back to the dorm—Caspar hasn’t texted him yet, so he’s probably still out. “I’m back,” he announces, pushing the door open and already taking a step towards the direction of the dresser drawer where they keep the cat treats—

Before he actually looks inside and sees Byleth with, of all people, _Ashe,_ the latter’s arm stretched out and clearly about to pet Byleth’s head.

Ashe retracts his arm so fast, Linhardt wonders if he’d even seen it in the first place. “L-Linhardt!” he exclaims, jumping to his feet. Byleth looks disappointed. “You—uh, I was waiting for you! A-Actually, Caspar left something at my place the other day, so I was just, uh, dropping it off!”

Linhardt looks over at Byleth, who is perfectly silent. “Why don’t you pet him?” he suggests, setting his plastic bag from the convenience store atop his bed. “He likes it.”

“…Eh? Really?”

“Yeah, go ahead. Byleth, you want it, right?”

Byleth nods, ears flopping. Ashe immediately sits back down and hesitantly extends his hand out again—after another “are you sure” glance at Linhardt, he rests his hand between Byleth’s ears and rubs him like how he pets his cats. As expected, Byleth leans in, his tail rising in the air in obvious contentment. “Oh,” Ashe gasps, “your hair’s so soft! It’s just like fur!”

“Thank you,” Byleth says. His expression doesn’t change, still perfectly blank, but Linhardt has learned how to tell how he’s feeling from body language alone. Or tail language, rather. “Linhardt, can I have…”

“Sure. Ashe, can you get him a treat?”

“He _eats those?_ ” Ashe hurries over to pull the drawer open, grab a treat, and toss it in an arc in the air. Byleth snatches it with his hand and pops the biscuit in his mouth. “Oh, my God, that was so cute.”

Linhardt looks down at his bed, more to hide his face from them than anything. _Cute…?_ “You’re taking this pretty well.”

“Oh, he explained the situation.” Ashe gives Byleth another treat, which Linhardt is too tired to try and stop. Byleth is already chewing it up before he’s even swallowed the first one. “But I gotta say, Linhardt,” Ashe adds, a light blush tinting his cheeks pink, “I really, um… I never expected you to do s-stuff like that! It just didn’t seem like you. But I guess it makes sense, really.”

Linhardt pauses in shifting through his convenience store loot and slowly turns around to face them. “What?”

“Err—look at the time! I have to get going,” Ashe announces, looking at his bare wrist. “Nice meeting you, Byleth! See you both!” And then, before Linhardt can drag him back inside, Ashe flees the room like a criminal caught red-handed.

Byleth’s tail droops. Linhardt narrows his eyes at him. “What exactly did you tell Ashe?”

“Well, I told him about being a demon,” Byleth says. Linhardt nods. Not that bad—Ashe isn’t much for demonology, but he knows enough about it that something like this probably wouldn’t surprise him for long. “And then he asked, ‘So what do you and Linhardt do?’ and I said, ‘Sex—’”

Linhardt drops his bag. “You said _what?_ ”

“Se—”

“ _What!?_ ”

“S—”

“No treats for a week.”

Byleth’s eyes go wide. “Did I do something wrong?”

He looks so pitiful that Linhardt immediately feels bad, but then he remembers that Ashe is literally never going to look at him the same way ever again, because now Ashe thinks he _purposely summoned a demon for sex,_ and good God, the only silver lining here is that Ashe isn’t the gossipy type. “Treats are unhealthy anyway.”

Byleth shuffles forward, his tail tucked between his legs. “Okay,” he agrees, sounding utterly miserable. “In that case, if something like that happens again, what do I tell them?”

“Good question,” Linhardt sighs. Honestly, if Ashe only thought that they were friends with benefits or something, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad. Linhardt’s gone through his fair share of those—Ashe himself had been one of them at some point, though it hadn’t lasted too long. Well, it’s as good an answer as any. “Just tell them we’re friends with benefits.”

Byleth’s ears twitch. “We are? We haven’t done anything else since that day.”

Linhardt’s vaguely surprised he even knows what FWBs are. “Do you want to?” he asks, pretending his heart isn’t suddenly going crazy in his chest.

“You’re my summoner,” Byleth points out. “You decide.”

Linhardt sighs. “Never mind. How about we talk about this… when I’m not stupendously sleepy. Oh, next time, try to keep the cat parts in if someone’s visiting—it’s a good thing Ashe knows us well enough to know I wouldn’t be into weird cosplay like this.”

“These aren’t cosplay.” Byleth’s ears twitch again for emphasis, and he props his chin up atop the edge of Linhardt’s bed as he idly watches Linhardt pull the blankets over himself. “Are you sure you don’t want me to do anything for you? If you’re stressed, sex is a very good way to calm down.”

“I—” Linhardt forces the blush down. “I mean, I don’t really know…”

“Do you want me to suck you off again?”

The words are starting to get to Linhardt’s head, and he’s already starting to feel less sleepy, which is far from a good thing. “No, no, I’m fine. Seriously.”

Byleth looks disappointed again, but he only says, “Okay,” before retreating back to his mattress. “But you’ll tell me if you want me to do anything, won’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah. Now just let me sleep.”

It’s around two weeks later that Linhardt finds himself having to leave for a trip to the bookshop and leave Byleth alone at the dorm again.

The past two weeks had been spent slaving over studies and projects, so Linhardt hadn’t been able to learn much about the proper method to send Byleth back from wherever he came. Byleth isn’t much help himself—apparently he had always just left that part up to his summoner, which Linhardt supposes he should have expected—and it seems even demons are getting more modern these days, because he only stares blankly down at the ancient text Linhardt tries to get him to translate.

Linhardt supposes he’s useful for other things too, though. They find out that Byleth’s not half-bad at cooking, so he spends hours in the dorm kitchen making meals for every student who walks in while Linhardt supervises (read: sits on the counter, sometimes takes a nap) to make sure his ears don’t suddenly pop back out. And he’s awful at every other subject _except_ for mathematics of all kinds, which for some reason Byleth absolutely excels in, so he’s been offering tutoring services where the only payment is pet food he smuggles away under his clothes and later eats in the room. Caspar’s needed his help for homework more than once.

It’s a little… strange, certainly. Everyone’s been asking Linhardt who Byleth is, and considering Linhardt can’t go around spreading rumors that there’s a demon cooking them food and teaching them math, he tells them he’s visiting from the next city over for a while. That way, they won’t be too surprised when Byleth suddenly disappears.

But the problem is— _does_ Linhardt want to send Byleth back now?

“I have to go shopping again,” Linhardt says, shoving his wallet in his pocket.

“Okay.” Byleth’s tail flicks. Linhardt found out a few days ago that he liked switching color palettes every now and then, and today he’s gone with a bright shade of mint green for his eyes, hair, and fur. “I’ll be good and stay put.”

“Oh, no. This time you’re coming with me.”

Byleth sits up on his mattress, apparently so surprised that for a moment his pupils turn into slits, like that of a cat’s, before reverting back to normal human eyes. “Eh? Why?”

“Why? I don’t want a repeat of Ashe.” Linhardt crosses over to the cabinet and grabs the first coat he sees, tossing it towards Byleth. It’s long and black, and Linhardt vaguely remembers receiving it as a birthday gift from a relative years ago. “There, wear that. Even if your tail pops out by accident like last time, this should hide it.”

Byleth’s ears twitch before they disappear from above his head. “Okay. Thank you.” He smiles one of his small, rare smiles as he pulls the coat on. “Where are we going? Will it be to many places? I haven’t seen much of the human world.”

Linhardt frowns in thought. “Not really… I was just going to the bookshop. It’s, what, five minutes away? And then maybe the convenience store. I want a snack.”

“Oh.” Byleth droops, but he straightens his shoulders again as if trying not to show it.

“I don’t do a lot of sightseeing. City air isn’t great for that,” Linhardt says, walking out of the room. As soon as Byleth follows, Linhardt locks the door behind them and starts off down the hall. “Is there somewhere you want to go?”

“Well… no…”

“Ugh, don’t give me that. Once a month I have the energy to go out and go somewhere I don’t have to, so you might as well take advantage of this now.” Linhardt suppresses a yawn—just thinking about walking an extra mile to wherever Byleth wants to go is already tiring him out. Hell, just walking right now is already tiring him out.

But for all Byleth’s lack of emotion, Linhardt likes to think Byleth’s been more… expressive since he was first summoned. At the very least, it’s easier to figure out what he’s thinking and what he wants, even if he doesn’t say it, and Linhardt can’t deny prior knowledge of cat body language, especially their tails, helps a lot. He supposes he has Ashe’s excitable info-dumping to thank for that.

Anyway, the point is that the longer Byleth spends in the human world, the more… well, _human_ he seems to grow. Aside from cat treats and (predictably) all fish meals, he’s partial to tea as well, and his obsession with Caspar’s Nintendo DS is approaching unhealthy. If Linhardt were braver, he’d call the demon’s human-like characteristics endearing.

“Then…” Byleth tilts his head, and Linhardt can just imagine his ears flopping along with him. “Can we… go see some plants?”

“…Plants?”

“There aren’t any in this building. Well, there are a few,” Byleth says, looking disgruntled, “but they turned out to be fake. I miss plants.”

“You didn’t get to see any plants when you were last summoned?”

Byleth seems to mull it over for a few seconds before responding. “No. I was stuck inside an oppressive room. That person didn’t have anything normal in there, really. Mostly those… anime figurines and stuff…”

Linhardt feels a shiver run down his spine. “That… I can see why you’d find it oppressive.” Possibly because the stink from a lack of showers and general cleaning would have been oppressively heavy.

But thinking about it, are those the sorts of people Byleth is usually summoned by? Linhardt supposes it makes sense, considering he’s a sex demon with cat ears, but it must get boring being summoned for the same thing again and again. By the looks of things, Byleth probably didn’t get much freedom either, if he hasn’t been able to see much of the human world. Past summoners probably ordered him to stay inside as well, either because of the whole cat thing or because…

Linhardt stops himself from going down that road. “Okay, you help me carry the stuff I need and I’ll get you to some place with plants after. Sound good?”

“Yeah.” Byleth smiles again, a little wider this time, and Linhardt finds himself staring—with how Byleth’s face seems to be perpetually set in his default serious expression, seeing him smile more than usual is slightly unnerving. “Thank you, Linhardt.”

Slightly unnerving. But not bad.

Linhardt loses Byleth in the bookshop five minutes in, and it takes him ages before he finally finds Byleth in the religion section, of all places, staring at the different Bibles like they’d personally harmed him. “I don’t understand,” Byleth says. “These should be in the fiction section.”

“Wow, that’s harsh.” Linhardt blinks. “Wait, do you actually know the truth behind religion? You’re a demon, it would make sense.”

Surprisingly enough, Byleth shakes his head. “That’s not really my… field of expertise. I just think if there were really an all-knowing, benevolent God out there, demons wouldn’t exist in the first place.”

Linhardt hums. He’s not too religious himself, despite growing up in a largely Catholic family; different sorts of faith helped different sorts of people, and having spent far too much of his childhood sitting in his father’s hospital and seeing people stay alive solely through their belief in their gods was admirable, if nothing else.

Of course, it meant he’d watched people break down and scream at God for not keeping their loved one alive, too. In the end, Linhardt could only really rely on cold, hard medicine.

Byleth slides a prayer book off the shelf and flips through it. Linhardt half-expects him to burst into flames or something, but instead he starts talking. “Demons are born from the sins of men,” he says, like he’s reciting a memorized speech. “In that way, we’re evil given life. I was born from lust, if that wasn’t obvious. Temptation is one of my strongest suits.”

“I figured. But you said you were… beast-like before?”

“Well, humans tended to lust after other humans, not demons,” Byleth muses, “so there was no need to adopt a human form just yet. In the olden times, I was summoned to lead humans to my summoner for them to… take, I suppose is the right word. But as the years passed, more people started wanting _me_ instead, so I had to learn to adapt. I can take on any human form to suit my summoner’s preferences, really, but I like this one best.”

Linhardt’s thoughts involuntarily return to the person Byleth had mentioned before—his last summoner, who apparently collected anime figurines, among other things. “Sounds about right. And you… what, don’t mind? You just do whatever they ask?”

“They summoned me properly, so I didn’t have much of a choice.” Byleth slots the book back on the shelf and starts heading towards the other sections. “Of course, I just eat up those who make a mistake in the ritual.”

“ _Eat up?_ ”

“Humans are very tasty,” Byleth cheerfully says. “Though they have too many bones for my taste. Ah, don’t worry, I don’t plan on eating you.”

Linhardt scratches his cheek, not very reassured. “I didn’t exactly perform a ritual to summon you or anything, though. It was an accident, remember? Dropping a bit of blood on your summoning circle sounds a bit… well, it sounds too easy to mess up.”

Interestingly enough, Byleth averts his gaze from Linhardt, looking almost embarrassed, before he wordlessly shuffles off towards the fiction shelves and busies himself with the books there. Linhardt steps forward, changing his basket of notebooks and new pens from one hand to the other. “What? Don’t tell me you went anyway for some ulterior motive?”

“Nothing like that…”

“Hmm. Am I your type or something? You saw me and decided it’d be fun?”

“N—” Byleth’s cheeks redden, and Linhardt catches the tip of his tail poking out beneath the coat before it disappears again. Did shyness interfere with his focus on his disguise? That’s almost too adorable for Linhardt’s tastes. “D… Don’t say that.”

“That’s not a no,” Linhardt can’t help but observe.

Byleth grabs a book and presents it to Linhardt. “Can I have this?”

It’s _Fifty Shades of Grey._ Linhardt sighs. “There are better references for BDSM. Also, the books are terrible. You’re better off watching the movies.”

Byleth looks thoughtful. “Then… can we watch them together?”

Linhardt considers his request. Claude had coerced Edelgard and Dimitri into watching all three films to make fun of it, but apparently Dimitri had started crying at the end of the third one, so maybe it was worth a try. It sounded like decent entertainment value anyway, whether or not the series was actually any good. “Can you torrent three 1080p movies into my laptop and then delete them from existence right away?”

“Done.”

“Alright. Movie night later, then.” Ashe and Caspar are going to kill him for this.

Byleth buys a different book, some obscure romance Linhardt’s never seen, and they head to the convenience store. Linhardt ends up spending far more than he had expected, because Byleth gives him pleading kitten eyes for the fish sandwiches, and Linhardt really shouldn’t have fallen for it but he just looked too _cute._ Eventually, they finish up with Linhardt’s errands, and Byleth is bouncing on his heels in excitement as they head out of the store. “Will it be a flower shop?” Byleth asks, hands clasped behind his back. “We passed by a few a while ago, didn’t we? The flowers were nice, weren’t they?”

“Mm, sure.” Linhardt had been paying more attention to Byleth than their surroundings, admittedly. The man got excited over every little thing, and sometimes even chased birds that landed near the ground. “Do you want somewhere a little closer to nature, though? It’s not perfect, but it might be what you want.”

Byleth’s eyes widen. “Okay!”

The city is the furthest thing from nature there is, but Linhardt knows his way around—after needing to find more and more places to hide in whenever he wanted to ditch classes or get away from the stuffy, bloody hospital, he can confidently say he knows this place like the back of his hand. Byleth follows him through streets and alleyways, occasionally distracted by interesting buildings with fascinating architecture and the like, before Linhardt finally spots their destination. “Over there. You see the bridge?”

Byleth’s pupils become slits again, longer this time that Linhardt can actually get a good look at them. They’re exactly like how cat’s eyes look, although Linhardt’s never seen a cat with eyes this shade of dark blue before. Then Byleth blinks, and they’re back to normal—Linhardt’s almost disappointed. “Yeah. Are we going there?”

“Mhm. Watch your step.”

The stairs that lead down to the riverbank have long been ruined by erosion and neglect from the general populace, so taking those would mean tumbling down and landing face-first into the water—Linhardt and Caspar had carved out their own route down, using a part of the rock wall that they’d perfectly memorized the footholds for after years of usage. Linhardt clambers down, the only form of exercise he tolerates, and laughs under his breath when Byleth stares down at him from above. “Well? Come on, it’s not that hard.”

Byleth scowls. “Hold on.”

Then, without warning, he disappears. Linhardt blinks. He doesn’t even have time to speculate on what happened before something small and dark is leaping off the higher ground to land neatly on four paws by the riverbank.

“You can turn into a _cat?_ ” Linhardt blurts out.

The cat meows almost derisively up at him, which Linhardt has a feeling Byleth can only get away with because, well, he’s a cat right now, and Linhardt can’t prove he’s actually being derisive without also sounding delusional. _A Russian Blue,_ Linhardt recognizes. Their fur is usually closer to slate grey or silver than actual blue, but Byleth is as blue as midnight navy blue can get.

In another blink, Byleth’s taken the cat’s place, sitting with his knees folded up to his chest atop the sand—his features are back to a distinct mint green. His ears are visible for only a moment before they disappear once again, but it looks like he can’t be bothered to hide his tail—the tip of it flicks out from beneath the coat, visible only to Linhardt. “Were you surprised?” he asks, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Don’t get cheeky with me now.” Linhardt sits down next to him, uncaring if the sand gets on his clothes. It’s time for a visit to the laundromat anyway, thinking about it. “That must be pretty useful. You could eavesdrop on people like that.”

“Mm, I’ve done it dozens of times. You hear… quite a lot.”

“Really? Like what?”

Byleth is quiet for a moment, tapping his chin, before nodding. “One time a past summoner wanted me to gather information on their crush, so I went out as a cat and listened in under the window. It turns out this person liked my summoner back.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Enough that they wanted to kill my summoner in order to have them all to themselves.”

Linhardt’s brows shoot up halfway to his hairline. “Oh. That… sounds pretty bad. What happened in the end? Don’t tell me your summoner actually died.”

“Well, _someone_ died,” Byleth says, like it’s no big deal, “but it wasn’t either of them, and they ended up in a healthy relationship in the end. I think. It’s been, um, 300 years since then? 350? I haven’t really been keeping up. Time passes quickly where I’m from.” He reaches out towards the river, his eyes lighting up. “More importantly, these are…”

“Oh, yeah. Cattails.” Linhardt smiles to himself. “There are a lot of them in this area. I thought you might like them.” The water is clean, too, thanks to some laws on pollution that were passed a few years back, and fishes began to return to the river. There are a few of them now, swimming in lazy circles, the late afternoon sunlight glimmering off their scales.

He lets Byleth stare at the cattails a little longer, his eyes following the hypnotic bob and sway of the plants, before Linhardt asks, “Where _do_ you come from, Byleth? What’s it like?”

Silence, for a while. Byleth closes his eyes, blowing a stray strand of hair out of his face. “I’m just another demon,” he says, echoing his words from a month ago, maybe longer. “I don’t know much about… anything, really. I haven’t even been alive for that long. But… I guess you could call it Hell.”

“That implies the existence of Heaven,” Linhardt carefully returns.

But Byleth shakes his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. I wouldn’t really call it Hell, personally. It’s a void of nothing. Like… a black hole. Like oblivion.” He shrugs, his tail curling to rest atop his thigh. “It exists on another plane of reality. In there, we don’t have physical forms. We’re barely alive. Like I said, we’re… mere concepts. Greed, envy, wrath… lust. _Byleth_ is just the name humans gave me—I never had a real name to call myself by before then.”

Linhardt lets the quiet drag on a little, giving Byleth some time, then speaks again. “That’s where you go, when you’re not summoned by a human?”

A nod. “We wait and wait and wait for a human to call on us. That’s the only time we can leave that place. Then, when we finish our duty, and our summoner is satisfied… we go back.”

“Do you want to go back?”

Byleth is shaking his head before Linhardt’s even finished his question. “It wasn’t so bad there at first,” he mutters, picking at a loose thread on his pants. “But the more time I spent in the human world, the more I hated having to return. That place is… I can’t even call it a place. It’s _nothing._ Do you know what I mean? In a place where everything is nothing, _you’re_ nothing, too. When I’m there, it’s like…”

He trails off, but Linhardt finishes his sentence for him. “It’s like you don’t exist… right?”

Byleth nods again. His expression is carefully neutral, but a wrinkle has formed between his brows. “In here, things happen. When I cook, someone eats my food. When I teach, someone hears me and listens.” He turns to face Linhardt at last, his hands brushing the heads of the cattails before him. “I know I was born from human sin and lust, but… even though I’ve seen some of the worst humans have to offer… they’re not all that bad, really.”

For a few minutes, the silence stretches on—there are few other people in the area, so the only sounds are the flowing water and the bubbling fishes. Byleth returns to playing with the cattails. Above them, the sun is beginning to set, the pink and orange sky dancing across the surface of the river.

“Why don’t you just stay, then?” Linhardt eventually asks. “Well, there’s probably something that prevents you from staying though, huh. If it were that easy, you wouldn’t go back.”

Byleth shrugs. “Demons can only exist in the human world until they fulfill their purpose. After that, they’re contractually obliged to return. I don’t have to eat or drink to live, as you probably know, but I do need this sort of demonic energy that the void gives me. So if I stay too long in the human world when I shouldn’t… say, around a week… then I start losing that energy and die.”

A _week?_ That’s barely enough time for even a vacation overseas or something. “Isn’t there any way to get you to stay?” Linhardt prods, expertly holding back the desperation from his voice. “There are hundreds of rituals out there. Surely there’s one that helps you somehow.”

Byleth shakes his head. “If there are any, I would have heard of them by now.”

“What about…” Linhardt wracks his head for any theory that sounds plausible. Despite the panic beginning to creep in the edges, this is a situation he’s all too familiar with—thinking up all the possibilities, forming hypotheses, testing them out one by one until something sticks. “Something to make sure you keep getting energy from the void—”

“There’s none,” Byleth interrupts, voice sharp for the first time since he’s arrived here, and Linhardt blinks in mild surprise. Byleth must realize that too, because his eyes widen, pupils turning into slits again, and stammers, “S—Sorry. I didn’t—I don’t—”

“It’s fine,” Linhardt reassures, reaching out to lay a hand on him, but Byleth jerks his wrist away so fast it’s dizzying. Under the coat Linhardt can see Byleth’s tail is hiding between his legs—is he scared? Or… experiencing pain?

It takes Byleth another few seconds to get his breathing under control, and when he blinks, his eyes are back to normal. “Sorry,” he murmurs again, not meeting Linhardt’s eyes.

“It’s fine,” Linhardt repeats, feeling a bit guilty when curiosity bleeds through his voice and drowns out the assurance he’d meant to inject more of. “Are you alright?” At Byleth’s nod, Linhardt carefully adds, “If you don’t mind, what was that about?”

Byleth is quiet for another few seconds before he slowly says, “Demons are expected to be obedient and subservient to their summoner at all times.” Then, in an undertone, “Much more for one like me.”

 _Subservience…_ the word has Linhardt holding back a shudder. At the far-away look in Byleth’s eyes, Linhardt shifts just an inch closer. “You always mention demons have to serve their summoner until the end of the… contract,” Linhardt says, “but what do the demons get out of it? Demons can’t possibly exist just for humans’ convenience.”

“It’s up to the demon to decide on the conditions,” Byleth explains, his person relaxing—it looks like settling back on familiar territory worked. “Some of them get the same thing from every human. Others like me just get whatever they want.”

“So…” Linhardt leans in. “What do you want from me? Assuming you can bring it back with you into the void.”

Byleth’s gaze flicks down to his hand, and Linhardt follows his line of vision. “Oh, this?” Linhardt asks, not even the tiniest bit surprised as he lifts his hand up and spreads his fingers apart. The emerald gem on the silver ring he wears glimmers in the sunset light, and very nearly matches the shade of green Byleth’s eyes are. “Yeah, figures you’d like it.”

“Ah, only if you’re alright with it,” Byleth shyly murmurs.

Linhardt snorts. “By all means, do whatever you want with it. Hell, go ahead and throw it in the river. It’s a family heirloom, but I only wear it because Father will have my head if I don’t. Saying I gave it away to a demon would be the best way to say fuck-you to his face.”

Unexpectedly enough, Byleth laughs softly, hiding it behind one hand—Linhardt blinks, trying to sear the image in mind, before he realizes he had been so focused on how Byleth looks that he hadn’t even heard the laugh itself, which is so unbelievably stupid that Linhardt wants to hit himself, repeatedly, with a rock. “Keep it first,” Byleth tells him. “When I have to leave… can I have it then?”

 _When_ he has to leave. Not _if._

“Yeah,” Linhardt says, turning back to watch the sun slowly sink beneath the horizon. “Sure.”

That night, the four of them—Linhardt, Byleth, Caspar, and Ashe—crowd atop Byleth’s mattress on the floor, prepare the cereal boxes and potato chips, and squabble over even blanket and pillow distribution while Linhardt gets his laptop set up. As Byleth promised, the movie files are neatly hidden in an innocuous untitled folder on his drive, and Linhardt grins as he places it in front of them and the intro starts up.

Caspar is already burning through the chips fast. “What’d you get, Lin? Jeez, this looks like a low-budget film already.”

 _Fifty Shades of Grey_ proudly flashes on-screen. Ashe screams and slaps the laptop closed.

Somehow, Linhardt manages to convince Caspar and Ashe to keep going, and that they can skip all the explicit scenes as long as they at least get to watch the first one that comes up. It also helps that Byleth is right behind him with the kitten eyes again, only this time complete with the cat ears, so Ashe relents fairly quickly and Caspar only agrees afterwards.

“My biggest question is why it’s in 1080p,” Ashe says once he tentatively restarts the film.

Linhardt shrugs. “If we’re going to be entertained, it might as well be in high-quality. Also, Byleth ensures I never have to rely on the awful Wi-Fi connection here ever again.”

“What? No way!” Caspar exclaims. “Dude, you’re really cool for a cat demon whatever!”

Byleth looks embarrassed. “As long as it’s related to… my specialty, I can do it.”

Caspar frowns. “What does being a cat have anything to do with porn?”

Linhardt shakes his head at Byleth, and Ashe wisely keeps his mouth shut. Caspar’s volley of questions continue for another couple of minutes until the main character finally shows up on screen, and then he quiets and actually starts watching.

By the end of all three movies, Ashe is in actual tears and Caspar has passed out on his shoulder. “They’re… They’re in _love,_ ” Ashe wails as the credits finally roll. Linhardt doesn’t think he’s ever been so glad to see credits in his life. “I can’t believe it! How on earth were those better than the books!?”

“Probably because the relationship wasn’t portrayed half as abusive,” Linhardt notes. Then he frowns. “Hold on, how do _you_ know these are better than the books?”

Ashe goes suspiciously silent and busies himself with nudging Caspar awake.

Linhardt grins. “Ashe.”

“L-Listen,” Ashe stutters, “it was a gift from Hapi, alright, and she even wrapped it so that I wouldn’t know what it was other than they felt like a set of books, so of course I was excited but even when I found out what they were, I couldn’t just dump them in the nearest donation box, so I had no choice but to read them, okay?”

“Sure.”

“It was a _birthday gift, okay!?_ ”

“Sure,” Linhardt repeats. He stretches his arm out to pinch Caspar’s cheek—with Byleth dozing away on his thighs, he can’t do much more than this anyway. “Hey, wake up. Go get your boyfriend to bed… or act out some parts we just watched, your pick…”

Ashe goes bright red. “L-Linhardt!” he yelps, but doesn’t say anything else. Linhardt just hums in response. Despite the agreement, they’d forgotten to skip past most of the sex scenes in the end.

Eventually, Caspar wakes up and helps clean the trash off the mattress, then heads out with Ashe to Ashe’s apartment, where Linhardt is 95 percent sure Caspar is not coming back from until tomorrow morning. Byleth only stirs back to full wakeness after Linhardt’s spent nearly half an hour working on one of his papers on his laptop, having needed to stretch his upper body out to type and not disturb Byleth at the same time.

Byleth scrubs at his eyes. “You could have woken me up.”

“Eh. Good karma goes a long way. Next time I’m having an impromptu nap, maybe some nice person will make sure I’m uninterrupted too.” Linhardt closes his laptop and sets it atop the desk to charge. “What did you think?”

“Mm?”

“Of the movies.”

Byleth mulls it over for a while as Linhardt crawls back into his bed. “Could have been worse,” he eventually says. “The first one was a total bore. But their relationship definitely improved over the series. Ah, and the main character became so much prettier! But the man…” He shakes his head and leaves it at that.

Linhardt can’t help but laugh—he never imagined Byleth of all people would have actual, substantial commentary on the movies. “But what about the _sex?_ That’s what most people watch these for anyway.”

“Underwhelming,” Byleth readily answers, looking almost irritated. “So… _tame._ The way the reviews were going, I expected much more.”

“Oh?” Linhardt smiles, shifting slightly on the bed so that the oversized hoodie he’s wearing hikes up his thighs. “What _were_ you expecting, Byleth?”

Byleth’s gaze remains perfectly passive. “Something more educational than what was shown.”

Linhardt blinks, confusion taking over for a moment. “Wh… Educational?”

“It’s difficult keeping up with all the new trends humans like, so I thought movies like this would help me discover more and ready me for when I’ll need to participate in something similar,” Byleth says, like he’s reading from a manual. Linhardt is too dumbfounded to respond. “One time I was summoned by a human who was very fond of feet, you see.”

“Stop right there,” Linhardt orders. Byleth obediently goes quiet, although he doesn’t look like he knows what he’d just said. “Er… so… you wanted to watch this because you thought it would be. Uh. Educational?”

Byleth nods.

Linhardt flops back on the bed, abandoning whatever sultry pose he’d been going for. “I don’t even know—alright, never mind. Well, since you brought it up, what _are_ you into, then?”

“Me?” Byleth timidly repeats.

“Yes, you, not your past summoners. Isn’t there anything you personally like?”

Linhardt doesn’t want to pressure Byleth into answering right away, so he keeps his gaze fixed on the ceiling, but after entire minutes pass and Byleth still hasn’t spoken, he can’t help but glance back curiously. “Is it something… strange?” Linhardt asks. “You don’t have to be shy. I won’t judge.” _Well, unless it’s child molestation or something…_

“Um…” Byleth’s cheeks are bright red and adorable—his tail is ramrod-straight in the air behind him. “Uh, well, this isn’t really… umm…”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“It _is,_ ” Byleth actually _whines._ “Even the past summoners I told this to were, um, weirded out… and ended up sending me home… but I’m not really ‘into’ anything else… or, um, more like, I’m into everything, but not really _into_ it? If you know what I mean?”

Linhardt just sighs in amusement. “There, there, it’s fine.” And maybe it’s the late hour, or maybe he’s just feeling a tad more comfortable with Byleth than he used to be, because he doesn’t hesitate before reaching out and rubbing Byleth’s head in the area between his twitching ears, scratching lightly at his hair. Ashe was right—it really does feel like fur, soft to the touch. “Trust me, there are weirder kinks and fetishes out there,” Linhardt tells him. “I know this one guy back in high school—”

And then he pauses, because only _now_ does he realize Byleth’s gone perfectly still beneath him, his eyes wide and bright, his tail swishing side to side behind him—and his pants looking distinctly tight.

Linhardt pulls his arm back so fast, his shoulder nearly pops. “ _Petting?_ ”

“Wait!” Byleth squeaks, pulling the blankets over his legs. “I-I can explain!”

“ _Petting turns you on?_ ”

“It’s not like that,” Byleth says, sounding so desperate that Linhardt immediately feels bad for his kneejerk reaction. Honestly, petting is a far less intense kink than the story Linhardt had been about to tell him. “It’s just… It’s hard to explain, but…”

“Wait.” Linhardt stares at him. “So those times when Caspar and Ashe would pet you… You didn’t… Did you?” For some reason, the thought of other people exciting Byleth has something hot and angry clutching at his chest, but Linhardt waves the feeling off as best as he can.

Byleth shakes his head. “No! It’s—It’s different. I mean, it’s not _just_ petting. It’s more, like… umm…” He sighs, looking at a complete loss for words. Linhardt can relate. “Affection… I guess?”

“Affection?”

“You know…” Byleth twists the fabric of the blankets up in his hands. “Being kissed or something…”

“Since when was that even, like… a kink? Isn’t that just normal human cravings?”

“I’m not human,” Byleth reminds him.

“Oh. Right.” Linhardt frowns. “But you have feelings and emotions. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the most human thing any living being can have, so it counts. Anyway, why would your past summoners dislike that? Sounds like they summoned you so _they_ could be kissed.”

Byleth shrugs shyly. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. They’re not there to pleasure me, so what I like is hardly important.”

Linhardt’s head is starting to hurt. “Byleth. Of course it’s important.” He moves from his bed to the mattress, shuffling forward on his knees until he can reach out and pet Byleth between the ears again. “You may not be biologically human, but you still deserve to be treated like one.”

“But…”

“Don’t _but_ me,” Linhardt says. “Don’t feed me that ‘I do everything for my summoner’ spiel either. Let _me_ do this. Alright?”

Byleth opens his mouth, probably to protest again, but Linhardt cuts him off by pressing his knee between Byleth’s thighs, and Byleth moans instead of whatever he’d been planning to say. Like this, Linhardt hovers on all fours above Byleth, one hand bracing himself against the mattress while the other strokes his hair. “Like that,” Linhardt murmurs. “Good boy.”

“M-Mmmnn—” Byleth’s hips roll upwards, grinding himself against Linhardt’s knee. “Maste—I mean—h-hahh—L-Linhardt—”

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” Linhardt mumbles. He undoes Byleth’s trousers and watches greedily as Byleth hurriedly shucks off his shirt—his muscles are as delicious as Linhardt expected them to be. Not to mention Linhardt gets to see his dick again, still as big and thick as he remembers it. “What else do you like, Byleth?”

“Ah… huh?”

“Surely affection isn’t the only thing you’re into?”

Byleth frowns. “I-I don’t know. I never really think about this sort of stuff…”

“That’s fine.” Linhardt wraps a hand around Byleth’s cock, a delighted thrill zipping down his spine as it throbs in his grip, a drop of pre-cum dripping down his length. “We’ll just have to find out.”

He pumps Byleth’s cock a few more times, trying to get a feel for how Byleth likes it, but it’s so _huge_ that Linhardt’s head is getting foggy just looking at it leak more and more until he’s smeared wetness all over it. Byleth is muffling his moans behind his hands, his blush reaching all the way to his chest, and he only gets louder when Linhardt inches upwards and licks his nipple. “Like that?” Linhardt asks, swirling his tongue around the stiffening bud.

“M-Mnn…”

“Looks like you do.” Linhardt moves on to his other nipple, giving it equal attention and listening to Byleth’s soft mewls. But he’s growing impatient, his own erection straining against his underwear, and the longer Linhardt has Byleth’s cock in his hand, the more he wants it _inside_ him where it belongs. “Mm… Be a good boy and hold on a moment.”

He slides off Byleth’s person and digs around in his drawers until he finds the half-empty bottle of lube, neglected for far too long. Instead of returning to the mattress where Byleth is waiting, though, cock hard and flush against his thigh, Linhardt climbs up onto his own bed and kicks the blankets out of the way, folding his legs up to tug his underwear off.

“Well?” Linhardt asks, his grin lazy as he frees his cock of the fabric. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Ah—” Byleth scrambles to crawl up onto the bed as well, reversing their previous positions. Linhardt hands him the lube as he pulls off his hoodie, and Byleth’s movements when he takes it and spills a generous amount on his palm look near-automatic. “What do you prefer?”

“Prefer…?”

“What do you want me to do?” Byleth asks, though this question is only slightly less vague than the first one. When Linhardt still looks lost, Byleth’s blush darkens and he says, “T-Tell me what to do.”

“Oh. Order you around? Then…” Linhardt spreads his legs wide, exhaling sharply when Byleth’s slick fingers prod at his entrance. “Hard and fast. Don’t worry about hurting me. Don’t slow down until you’re finished. Uh… that’s pretty much it?”

“Okay.”

Byleth leans down to nip at a spot above Linhardt’s collarbone, right where he likes it, and Linhardt sighs, raising a hand to rub between Byleth’s ears as a reward. He opens Linhardt up quickly, clearly long used to the motions, and Linhardt groans when Byleth presses against his prostate—but he doesn’t stop there, and he starts thrusting his two fingers in and out, always prodding at that same spot until Linhardt is gasping, “Byleth—p-please—”

“Already?” Byleth says, sounding skeptical. “Umm… hold on.”

He adds another finger, and Linhardt nearly bucks off the bed at the stretch—the discomfort he’s sure would normally be present is chased out by pure pleasure. “Byleth, _please,_ ” Linhardt repeats, arms coming up to wrap around Byleth’s neck. “I’m ready, fuck, please—”

Byleth looks alarmed. “But—i-it might—”

“Get that dick in me right now before I come,” Linhardt orders, and Byleth hurries to obey. The emptiness when his fingers pull out has Linhardt whining at first, but the sound quickly morphs into a cry when he feels the tip of something decidedly larger nudge at his hole. “God—oh, God—”

“A-Are you okay?” Byleth asks, sounding so genuinely concerned that Linhardt can’t help but laugh against his shoulder. “Ah—d-don’t laugh! Are you really…?”

“I’m fine, seriously.” Linhardt shakes his head. “But not for long if you don’t start fucking me in five seconds.”

“T-That—”

“Four. Three.”

Byleth doesn’t hesitate this time—he grips Linhardt’s knees and pushes his cock inside. Linhardt’s moan comes out ragged—it’s still only the tip, but _God,_ it feels even bigger than he thought. “More,” he manages, in between other, much less coherent noises, and Byleth eagerly complies, easing himself further and further until he’s completely buried inside Linhardt’s ass.

Linhardt, for his part, can’t focus on a thing—his head is spinning in circles. He’s never had anything this big inside him, and holding on to Byleth is the only thing he can do to keep himself from floating away into unconsciousness. Without even moving, Byleth’s cock is already pressed against his prostate, and the pressure of his dick on that spot is enough to have Linhardt shaking beneath him.

On a whim, he clenches around Byleth’s cock, and feels it _throb_ inside him. “ _Fuck,_ ” Linhardt moans, dropping one of his arms across his face. “S-So—So big—”

He can’t think, can’t move, can’t do _anything—_ right now all he cares about is getting Byleth to fuck his brains out, over and over until his ass never forgets the shape of his cock. Just that thought is enough to have Linhardt leaking all over his stomach. “Move,” he just about orders, hand gripping onto the long, uneven hair at the base of Byleth’s neck. “P-Please.”

“Are you—”

“I’m sure, I swear, Byleth, _please—_ ”

“Okay, okay,” Byleth says, eyes wide. He slowly pulls out, leaving just the head of his cock inside, then _rams_ all the way back in with strength that has Linhardt crying out again, his voice much louder in the otherwise silent room. Thankfully Byleth doesn’t stop to ask if he’s alright and instead keeps going, thrusting hard and fast, slamming against Linhardt’s prostate with each movement.

Linhardt’s moans devolve into incoherent sobs within seconds. “So big, I c-can’t,” he babbles, doing his best to buck his hips in time with the merciless pace Byleth’s set up. “Harder—faster, give me more, h- _harder,_ Byleth—”

“Lin,” Byleth groans, lips brushing over his neck once more before he bites down hard enough that Linhardt _knows_ there’s going to be an extremely visible mark there by tomorrow. “You’re… so t-tight…”

 _You’re just too damn big,_ Linhardt wants to say, but what falls out of his mouth instead is another desperate cry. He’s smeared pre-cum all over himself by now, enough that it threatens to drip onto his sheets, and he weakly bumps one of his hands against Byleth’s wrist. “T—a- _ahh_ —Touch me, please…”

Byleth doesn’t ask further, only reaches down and clumsily jerks Linhardt off—but Linhardt doesn’t need much, and he lets out a strangled moan as his cum spurts out, spilling on his stomach and chest.

Immediately every muscle in his body shuts down on him, and if Byleth’s presence weren’t as demanding as it is, Linhardt probably would have passed out right there after the fastest and yet most intense orgasm he’s ever had. “Keep—Keep going,” Linhardt rasps, his head falling back on the pillow. “Want… inside…”

“Are you sure?” Byleth whispers, despite how he’s still breathing heavily and flushed down to his chest. “You’re—Aren’t you—”

“Keep _going,_ ” Linhardt says, mustering enough strength to put force behind his words as he grips Byleth’s hair. Byleth’s blush reddens even further, and once again Linhardt feels his cock throb in pleasure inside him right before he thrusts back inside. The sensitivity has Linhardt gasping and near-incoherent again, but his words give him an idea. “T-There. Like that… good boy. You’re… You’re so good for me.”

The way Byleth’s grip tightens on Linhardt’s knee is all too telling. “Praise kink,” Linhardt says, not sure why he needs to but saying it aloud anyway. “I knew you’d be into that.”

“You _knew?_ ” Byleth squeaks.

Linhardt clenches around his cock again, and Byleth whimpers endearingly. “Be nice for me, Byleth, and fuck me ‘til you come. You like it, don’t you? Like how tight I feel?”

“I-I do…”

“You want to fuck me senseless?”

“I do,” Byleth repeats, more conviction in his words. His eyes are darker now, pupils rapidly flickering between human-like to slitted. “I want to fuck you until _you_ come again, Linhardt, I want to see you again…”

“Shit,” Linhardt mutters. He’s never come twice in one go before, but then again, none of his partners had ever been sex demons with massive dicks before either. “You just want me to be your cock sleeve, don’t you?”

Byleth looks clearly taken aback, which Linhardt hadn’t exactly been expecting. “E—Eh?”

Alright, surely he knows the term. “Wanna use me like I’m just a hole for you to fuck?” Linhardt murmurs, gathering the strength needed to lean up and kiss Byleth’s neck. “Come in me over and over and make me your own personal cumdump…”

“What? No!” Byleth protests, and that’s even more unexpected that Linhardt can only blink up at him in bewilderment. “T-That’s not what you are to me at all! You’re more than that, Linhardt!”

“Wh—”

“You’re not just… that,” Byleth barrels on, moving closer as if to emphasize his point—all this really does is have Linhardt zeroing in on the most unimportant details of his face, though, like the length of his lashes or the curve of his cheek. “You’re one of the nicest humans I’ve ever met! Out of all my past summoners, you… you’re the one I want to be with the most!”

The words have Linhardt’s heart doing a variety of extreme sports in his chest, such as jumping off a cliff and diving several hundred feet into the ocean. Linhardt has never participated in an extreme sport in his life, but the point stands. “Byleth,” he finally manages, after an eternity of trying to string words together in an order that makes sense, “that… was dirty talk. I figured you of all people would get that.”

Byleth blinks. “Ah… wait… so…”

“But that was very sweet of you to say,” Linhardt adds, a grin curling along his lips.

“Wait,” Byleth repeats, realization dawning on his expression. “Wait, that was… that…”

“If you could hurry along, now, though…” Linhardt tightens meaningfully around his cock again. Up until this very moment in time, Linhardt had never thought he’d ever meaningfully clench his ass around someone’s dick, but he supposes the past month has been nothing but surprises.

Byleth flushes. “R-Right.”

The moment he starts moving again, all thoughts fly out of Linhardt’s head and into the nether—Linhardt refuses to believe there isn’t some sort of aphrodisiac in Byleth’s skin or something, because everything he does is absolutely _intoxicating._ Or maybe it’s just the sheer size of his cock that has Linhardt prone against the sheets and moaning Byleth’s name over and over.

When Byleth’s pace grows faster, more desperate, Linhardt focuses on tightening every time Byleth thrusts inside. “Oh, just like that,” he praises, breathing against Byleth’s neck—he lifts one hand to rub Byleth’s head while he lowers the other to stroke his hard cock again. “So big. So good. You’re such a good boy for me, Byleth…”

“L-Lin,” Byleth whimpers, breathtakingly breathless. “Can I… I’m going to…”

“You’ve done so well,” Linhardt tells him, kissing his jaw, sliding his lips down to the bob of his throat. “Go on, take your reward and come for me.”

Byleth gasps and cries out when he comes, and though Linhardt had been expecting it, he still hadn’t been ready for the sheer _amount_ Byleth spills inside him—it’s hot and thick and there’s so _much,_ pumping him full that Linhardt can do nothing but lie there and take it, mouth falling open to whimper pathetically as Byleth comes and comes and _comes._ “Byleth,” Linhardt somehow manages to say, though his words come out in a near-incomprehensible slur. “So… f-full…”

It’s only when Byleth shakily pulls out of Linhardt that they both realize Linhardt is still hard, his hand wrapped loosely but motionless around himself. “Nn… hngh,” Linhardt mumbles, too tired to keep moving. Cum is already beginning to drip out of his hole, threatening to pool beneath his thighs. “Christ. Look at this mess.”

Byleth goes an adorable pink. “Sorry?”

“Oh, this is definitely not something you need to apologize for. But…” Linhardt sighs, trying and failing to prop himself up on his elbows—the weariness from his previous orgasm and the still-simmering desire for the next one has his body caught in limbo between exhausted and energized. “Can you clean up what you can?”

“Ah, no problem.” Then, without warning, Byleth spreads Linhardt’s thighs apart once more and lowers his head to lick at the cum dripping out of him.

If Byleth hadn’t been holding onto him, Linhardt probably would’ve fallen off the bed. “W-What are you—a-ah, _oh,_ ” he groans, cutting himself off when Byleth laps up more of the cum. “A-Are you really… haah…”

“Saves on tissue,” Byleth says, lifting his head up just long enough to get that out before he returns to his task, hands squeezing Linhardt’s ass as if telling him to behave. Linhardt grits his teeth to hold back whatever embarrassing sound he would have made and hesitantly lifts his hips up to make it easier for Byleth.

Byleth mostly circles his entrance at first, lapping up the cum that dribbles out, and Linhardt has a fleeting thought about cats and milk that he shoots down before it evolves any further. His cock twitches in interest when Byleth begins to prod inside with his tongue, and Linhardt buries his moan in his pillow when the tip enters him—Byleth kneads his ass, like he’s trying to get Linhardt to relax, but all it accomplishes is more cum weakly spurting out of his hole and into Byleth’s mouth.

“Fu—nngh—” Linhardt blinks rapidly, feeling the hint of tears at the corners of his eyes. The overstimulation is almost too much now, but Byleth is adamant, his tongue stretching out to rub at the inside of Linhardt’s ass. Linhardt glances down for the shortest of seconds and almost regrets it—cum and drool alike are running down Byleth’s chin, his eyes half-lidded and hazy. “Byleth, there’s… so much…”

Byleth hums, his tongue starting to thrust in and out shallowly, and the sensation is too much—Linhardt tightens his grip and pumps his needy cock in desperation, a broken moan leaving him when he finally comes again, sticky whiteness splattering along his stomach. For a few long seconds, there’s nothing but the hot wave of pleasure washing over him, drowning out everything else.

“Okay—okay,” Linhardt breathes, somehow managing to force air back into his lungs, “Byleth, you can— _mmngh,_ you can s-stop…”

“Eh?” Byleth obediently withdraws, lips and chin smeared with cum—his tongue flicks out to lick around his mouth. “You’re still messy, Linhardt. You’re… messier, actually.”

Linhardt glances down at his torso. “I… Are you really that against using tissue?”

“Yes,” Byleth answers, and predictably enough, begins to lap up the cum on the rest of Linhardt’s body. Linhardt can’t find it in himself to argue.

When Byleth proudly declares him all cleaned up, Linhardt sighs in relief and relaxes against his pillow. Sex is great and all, but nothing beats the long, long sleep afterwards… and the cuddles. “Where do you think you’re going?” Linhardt mutters when Byleth moves to slide off the bed. “Stay here.”

Byleth looks bewildered. “Where?”

“Oh, my God. Here, on the bed. Beside me.” Linhardt pats the empty space next to him for emphasis, just in case Byleth doesn’t see it. “Where else?”

“But… am I really allowed?”

“Allowed?”

“I know my place,” Byleth mumbles, looking suddenly shy now, “and it isn’t beside a human. Much less in bed with them, if it isn’t for my purpose.”

Linhardt closes his eyes, counts to ten, and reopens them. “You know what you said, just a minute ago? That out of your past summoners, you want to be with me the most or something?”

Byleth reddens, but nods.

Linhardt turns to lie on his side, too embarrassed to maintain eye contact for what he’s going to say next. “Well, out of all _my_ past partners, including all the friends with benefits… you’re the one I want to be with the most, too. So… really, your place with me is wherever you decide. But like I said, this space here is for you, alright?”

There’s no immediate response, so Linhardt pulls the blankets up to his chin and resolutely closes his eyes, deciding to leave the decision up to Byleth—it won’t do either of them good if Linhardt abuses his summoner position and orders Byleth up to bed with him. And if Byleth really doesn’t want to, then Linhardt doesn’t want to force him either.

He drifts off after a few minutes, too spent to stay awake for much longer. But Linhardt wakes up to soft blue hair in the morning, arms wrapped snug around him, and the bed’s never felt quite this comfortable before.

A few days after that—Linhardt hadn’t been counting—Byleth goes still when he sits up from the mattress too fast, and his pupils flicker back to those of a cat’s. “Ah, sorry,” he says; “I got a bit dizzy.” He saw spots in his vision for a moment, he tells Linhardt, but it shouldn’t be a problem, and they leave it at that.

The next day, Linhardt wakes up before Byleth. By that he means he wakes up at half-past two in the afternoon, and Byleth is still asleep on the mattress. “Byleth?” Linhardt calls, not sure where the sinking feeling in his chest is coming from.

Thankfully, Byleth stirs, ears twitching and tail curling in acknowledgement. “Lin,” he murmurs, and Linhardt savors the sound of his nickname in that voice. Byleth almost exclusively calls him by his whole name, likely out of respect or whatever, but sometimes he slips up when he’s distracted. “Oh… it’s late… sorry. I’m a little… tired.”

“Tired,” Linhardt repeats. Byleth gets winded and out of breath, but never tired enough to sleep for approximately 16 straight hours.

Byleth’s ears flick. “I’ll be fine.” But his tail droops to rest between his legs, and there’s less life in his person than usual. Linhardt stares down at him for a minute longer, but Byleth offers nothing else, so Linhardt reluctantly slides off the bed and starts arranging his things for the day.

The thunderclap of realization hits Linhardt in the middle of chemistry class: Byleth is losing energy, because he’d fulfilled his purpose. Through… sex. Penetrative sex.

Technically, Linhardt doesn’t know if that’s what’s written down in his contract or something, because it’s not like Linhardt even knows where to find said contract, but it might be the be-all-end-all for a sex demon. Or maybe his end goal is to wring out a minimum of three orgasms from his summoner. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. It isn’t as if they’d agreed on any conditions when Byleth had been accidentally summoned, so the whole thing is all up in the air as far as Linhardt knows.

But Linhardt isn’t stupid, and he knows when things have been too good to keep going. Yet it doesn’t look like Byleth’s even aware of his own situation right now—how long had he mentioned the time limit to be, when he’d mentioned staying in the human world longer than necessary? A week? It’s been two days now since the symptoms started.

Linhardt’s hand shakes when he grips his pen. Five days. Hardly enough time for an overseas vacation. Hardly enough time for him to sort through his feelings.

When Linhardt gets back to the dorm sometime in the late afternoon, Byleth is sitting up and flipping through the book he’d bought the other day. “This is actually not that bad,” Byleth says, his tail upright in the air behind him. Contentment, Linhardt remembers. “Certainly better than _Fifty Shades._ Oh! Can we do movie night again this week? I want _Twilight._ ”

“Ashe can’t this Saturday, but—”

Linhardt’s words slide to a halt in his throat. If his theory is right, Byleth won’t be here next Saturday. Byleth won’t be here, period.

But Byleth is looking at him, wrapped comfortably in blankets with the book in his hands, smiling shyly up at Linhardt, and Linhardt has no choice but to keep going. “Next week should be fine.”

“Okay.” Byleth smiles, and his tail flicks again. “I downloaded them. 1080p. I heard there are werewolves, so this should be interesting!”

“Yeah,” Linhardt says, and falls lifelessly in bed, lying on his side to face away from Byleth.

There’s a moment of quiet until Linhardt hears the flip of book pages and the shuffle of blankets. “Are you alright?” Byleth asks, voice soft. He at least sounds a little more like his usual self, but that doesn’t reassure Linhardt much—he would have left the room to get to the dorm kitchen around this time. “Were classes tiring today?”

“Yeah,” Linhardt repeats, not up for thinking up any answers more creative than that.

The bed dips under new weight, and it takes him a second to realize it’s Byleth climbing up to lie next to him, his arms coming around to drape gently across Linhardt’s body. Something tickles his calf, and Linhardt doesn’t have to look to know it’s his tail. “Do you want anything?” Byleth asks, breath warm against the back of Linhardt’s neck.

Linhardt knows what he’s offering, and maybe under different circumstances, he’d take it—above everything else he already has on his plate, the exam he has scheduled for tomorrow is the icing on top, and he of all people knows how effective sex can be in de-stressing. But right now… “No,” he mumbles, turning around to bury his face in the crook of Byleth’s neck. “Just stay here.”

“Okay,” Byleth agrees. He nuzzles the crown of Linhardt’s head, arms tightening slightly into a hug.

Linhardt closes his eyes. He doesn’t mean to sleep for the rest of the day and straight through the night, but when he eventually does stir awake, it’s some ridiculous time of morning and Byleth is dozing along with him, ears twitching even in his sleep.

Like this, his face doesn’t look anywhere as severe as it used to. Linhardt stares at him a while longer, trying to carve the image of him into memory, before he ducks his head back into Byleth’s chest. There’s a familiar heat building in the back of his eyes, and Linhardt doesn’t dare let them fall. Somehow, he slips back into a fitful sleep that leaves him more tired than rested when he wakes up again.

On the third day, Byleth doesn’t budge when Linhardt clambers out of his arms and flops onto the mattress to grab his neglected demonology book. He finds nothing useful for several long chapters, and only when the sunlight begins to turn orange-gold does Linhardt finally happen upon the chapter detailing rituals to send demons home.

In general, it’s fairly simple to how Linhardt had summoned Byleth—some blood, a summoning circle, and only the two of them in the room. Linhardt reads the instructions over and over again, wishing for once that his eyes will just glaze over the words and his mind won’t take in a single letter, but unfortunately he reads it enough times that he ends up memorizing the passage by heart. Linhardt skims the rest of the chapter—at the end is detailed that the same demon cannot be summoned more than once by the same summoner. Something about blood pacts and whatnot. Linhardt doesn’t much care if there aren’t any loopholes for him to abuse.

He sets the book down and lies down face-first on Byleth’s pillow. There’s an ache in his chest that shouldn’t feel as familiar as the burn of oncoming tears, but it does, and Linhardt hates it.

Beside him, the blankets shift, and the tip of Byleth’s tail flicks in the edges of his vision. “I have to go back now,” Byleth murmurs, voice still thick with sleep, “don’t I.”

It isn’t a question, and therefore doesn’t need an answer. Byleth crawls off the bed to sit next to Linhardt. “Won’t you talk to me?” he asks, and Linhardt’s never heard sadness so loudly before. “I want to hear your voice, please.”

“I…” But what is there to say? Linhardt wants to throw a tantrum, wants to ask why everyone he loved seemed to take pleasure in leaving him, because Mother is dead and Father doesn’t care and now Byleth is leaving, too, and Linhardt doesn’t know if he can stand alone now that he knows how it feels to have someone to lean on. What’s there to say? Empty reassurances, meaningless platitudes, words Linhardt had never found a use for and certainly doesn’t now?

“I’m sorry,” he says, and instantly wishes he weren’t. This whole thing would hurt far less if so. “I don’t…”

“It’s okay. I knew this was coming.” Byleth leans in and nuzzles Linhardt’s head again, like Ashe’s cats nosing his palms for pets, and Linhardt has to squeeze his eyes shut before the tears can fall. “I only have four days left. Should we start now? So as not to prolong the wait?”

“You want to leave that badly?” Linhardt snaps. He shouldn’t, but he does anyway, and he doesn’t even have the courtesy to look up and meet Byleth’s eyes when he speaks again. “This was a mistake from the start. I should have sent you back as soon as I could.”

There’s silence, and then a heavy, shaky exhalation. “Maybe,” Byleth agrees. “Maybe you should’ve.”

The quiet stretches on for what feels like ages. “No, I… no,” Linhardt sighs, “I didn’t mean that. Fuck. I don’t know—I just—”

Abruptly he remembers their conversation by the river, and Linhardt pushes himself up into a sitting position just to tug the ring off his finger. It glimmers in the light, and he vaguely notes that it must be the golden hour right now, Ashe’s favorite time of the day. “Here. You wanted this, right? In exchange?”

Byleth nods, and only now does Linhardt realize his eyes are rimmed red, the tip of his nose much the same. “You’re okay with it?”

“Keep it.” _Remember me._ “Don’t go losing it either.” _Don’t forget me, please._

“Okay,” Byleth says, and Linhardt doesn’t think he’s ever hated a word so much in his life. Byleth takes the ring and slips it onto his ring finger—it’s probably got something to do with how he can shapeshift however he likes, but the ring fits perfectly snug, and it sparkles happily on his hand.

Linhardt idly reaches over and rubs the emerald. “It’s a family heirloom. If you look closely, you can see our family crest engraved on it… there, look. Lift it up to the light.” He takes Byleth’s wrist in hand to guide the ring into the sunrays coming in through their window, and Linhardt could swear skin on skin contact has never been this painful.

“I see it,” Byleth says, voice low, but he’s looking at Linhardt when he speaks. “It’s beautiful.”

There’s a twist of pain in Linhardt’s chest, right where his heart is, and that’s the only warning he gets before he’s cupping Byleth’s face in his hands and pulling him close to press their lips together.

Linhardt doesn’t know if this counts as their first kiss, since there was that one time Byleth had come all over Linhardt’s face, proceeded to lick him clean, and ended up tonguing his mouth. But by the gods, this kiss feels more like a kiss than that one, than every kiss Linhardt’s ever had, because Byleth’s lips feel just _right_ against his own—soft and dry and gentle when Byleth kisses back, one of his hands coming up to tangle in Linhardt’s hair. “Lin,” he breathes, so quiet Linhardt barely even hears it. “Lin.”

Linhardt draws back, just enough for them to meet each other’s eyes. He’s still holding onto Byleth’s face, cheeks hot under his touch, and Byleth still has one hand lightly gripping his hair. “I love you,” Linhardt tells him, plainly, simply, because it’s the plain and simple truth, and quite frankly he’s done mincing his words.

Somewhat predictably, Byleth startles. “What?”

“I _love you,_ ” Linhardt repeats. “It doesn’t matter that you don’t feel the same. You’re a sex demon, so I don’t expect you to go around getting attached to every human who summons you. But I just wanted to let you know, before—”

“No, no,” Byleth yelps, grip tightening on Linhardt’s hair, “that’s not—of course I—”

He goes quiet, the blush on his cheeks growing hotter and darker by the second, until the gears in Linhardt’s brain decide to move. “Of course you…”

“I-I told you before,” Byleth says, looking as if he desperately wants to look away but maintaining eye contact out of politeness, “that… that I like you the best among my past summoners. A-And I mean it. I do. I like you. I… love you.”

Linhardt stares at him. “How many times have you said those words?” he asks, softly. “Surely your summoners wanted you to love them, too.”

“They did,” Byleth says, but he looks less shy and more focused now, his eyes a dark, piercing blue. “I’ve said those words many times. Countless times. Over and over and over until my summoners went to sleep and I stepped out of the bed and slept on the cold floor because my place has never been beside a human’s.” He pauses, takes a deep breath, and lets it out. “But I had never meant the words until now.”

“You…” Linhardt wants to shove him away, to draw up the summoning circle and spit blood on the page until Byleth disappeared, because there is no way this could ever last—Byleth is a demon, one who’s lived for centuries upon centuries, and Linhardt is but another human on his long list of summoners. Nothing would come of this. In a few years Linhardt would die, and Byleth would never even know, never even care.

And yet—and yet.

He kisses Byleth again, more feverish this time—he pulls at the long strands of hair at the base of Byleth’s neck, slides their lips together until Byleth’s gasping for air under him, presses their bodies flush against one another so Linhardt can memorize the way every part of them fits perfectly. “You can’t,” he murmurs, tasting saltwater on both of their tongues. “You can’t.”

Byleth touches his cheek, fingers so painfully, torturously gentle. “I do.”

It feels like years pass until Linhardt finally has the strength to reach behind him and flip through the pages of his book until he finds the one with Byleth’s summoning circle. His dried blood from—what, a month and a half ago?—is still there, a single stain against the old paper. Byleth groggily lifts his head from where he had fallen asleep on the mattress.

“Come on,” Linhardt mutters, ripping the page out of the book. Normally he’d object to such crude treatment, but for once he’d rather never look at this particular page, or this particular book, ever again. “Let’s get this over with.”

Unlike the initial summoning, Linhardt has to chant something aloud. The words are meaningless to him, no matter how many times he reads them in his head, and Byleth is silent, sitting cross-legged in front of him on the mattress. With a sigh, Linhardt places the page between them, digs his paper cutter out from the nearby drawer, and shakily positions it above his finger. The cut there had long healed, and opening it again now feels like a betrayal.

He takes a deep breath. “ _Byleth, king of hell—_ ”

“Can you still watch _Twilight_ without me?” Byleth suddenly interrupts. “The movies won’t disappear after I do. They should still be on your laptop. Then when you’re done, can you tell me all about it?”

Linhardt stares at him. “I… Yeah. Sure. Alright.” When Byleth manages a smile, he clears his throat and starts over. “ _Byleth, king of hell, commander of eighty-five legions of—_ ”

“If it’s okay, can you buy more books by that author?” Byleth cuts in again. He points at the book he’d been reading yesterday, sitting beside his pillow with a cat-shaped bookmark peeking out from between the pages. “Even if I don’t get to read them, I’d like to support their books still.”

“Yeah. Sure. Okay.” A pause. Linhardt breathes in deep, not sure if he can continue without stumbling over his words. “ _Byleth, king of hell, commander of eighty-five legions of demons._ ” There’s an entire paragraph after that, but Linhardt can’t bring himself to keep going—it doesn’t just make Byleth’s departure _seem_ more final if he says them aloud, after all.

Byleth swallows, and he reaches across the summoning circle to press a soft, slow kiss to the corner of Linhardt’s lips. “Will you say goodbye to Caspar and Ashe for me, please? I don’t want them to be sad.”

It takes everything in Linhardt not to kiss Byleth within an inch of his life. “Yeah,” he murmurs, not bothering to hold back the tears. “Okay.”

Somehow he manages to read the rest of the passage without mistakes, and then he presses the blade of the cutter to his finger. It stings for only a moment—a bead of blood drips down onto the circle, and just like the first time around, the inked lines begin to glow dark blue. Linhardt looks up, meeting Byleth’s eyes for a moment, but he doesn’t want to look any longer than another second—he squeezes his eyes shut, waits for the bright light that the instructions mentioned would arrive.

Except…

Except there is no bright light. There’s no tugging sensation in the pit of Linhardt’s stomach like the book said would represent the severing of his bond with the contracted demon. There are none of the side-effects the book had warned may occur, like the paper suddenly catching fire or phantom pain along his body. Nothing.

Slowly, hesitantly, Linhardt opens his eyes. The summoning circle is still glowing, and that almost extinguishes the spark of hope that had ignited in his chest, but at the same time, Byleth is still there as well, sitting across him and looking equally bewildered.

Then something like realization flickers in his expression. “Linhardt,” Byleth says, and _oh,_ how Linhardt’s heart jumps into his throat at his voice, “when you summoned me… it was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“I—yeah,” Linhardt answers. “My blood just happened to fall there. I wasn’t really thinking of anything.”

“Demons can only be in the human world for as long as their purpose is unfulfilled,” Byleth says, speaking as slowly as possible as if trying to explain something to himself. “But if… if you didn’t have a purpose in mind when you summoned me…”

“Then I can just keep changing whatever purpose you’re here for,” Linhardt blurts out.

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the glow of the summoning circle abruptly dies. His blood on the paper is already beginning to spread in a small circle, obscuring the lower half of some words. For a moment, there’s only silence—outside, the sun has begun to set, and golden hour has passed without them even realizing.

With catlike agility, Byleth leaps over the paper and crushes Linhardt in a hug. “I love you!” he shouts, actually _shouts—_ Linhardt has never heard his voice this loud before. “Linhardt! Lin! I love you!”

“W-What—”

“I can only leave when you want me to leave,” Byleth says, speaking so fast and so different from his usual steady pace that Linhardt can hardly keep up. His tail is upright and moving back and forth, in the most obvious display of happiness Linhardt’s seen so far. “As long as you keep changing my purpose, I… I can stay here as long as you want me to!”

It takes Linhardt another second for the concept to properly process in his head; once it does, though, he instantly declares, “Then, your purpose is to be with me until neither of us want to be together anymore.”

Byleth blinks, ears twitching. “That sounds a little… negative.”

“True,” Linhardt admits, “but it gives us freedom, too, in case anything happens or changes. You need to account for these things in a contract, after all.”

A giddy grin spreads across Byleth’s face, one Linhardt’s never seen before either. It’s utterly adorable, and before Byleth can speak, Linhardt’s leaning in and kissing that grin off his face—Byleth lets out a surprised noise but kisses back more enthusiastically than Linhardt had been expecting, his lips pressing insistently and with enough strength to push Linhardt flat on the mattress. “B-Byleth!”

“I won’t leave you,” Byleth promises, so earnest that it catches Linhardt more off-guard than he’s used to. “You… I’ve never wanted to be with someone more than I want to be with you, Linhardt. So if you’ll have me, then… then…”

Linhardt waits, but nothing seems to be forthcoming. After a moment, Byleth shakes his head, cheeks coloring an embarrassed pink. “Um, I’m not very good with words, I don’t know how to continue that…”

“You’re hopeless.” Linhardt kisses him again, and Byleth readily adjusts to pull Linhardt back into a sitting position. Like this, it’s easier for Linhardt to reach up and rub between Byleth’s ears, stroking his hair and running his fingers through the knots. “But it’s fine. You don’t have to say anything else. I… Of course I’ll have you. For as long as you like.”

Byleth leans into his touch, tail swishing, ears twitching. “For as long as you like,” he repeats, voice soft. Sunlight glints off the ring on his finger.

He smiles, shy, and kisses the corner of Linhardt’s mouth. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to the discord server i watched the 50 shades trilogy with wherein the first movie was a complete joke but the third movie had us legitimately invested and emotional by the end of it
> 
> thank you for reading (❁´◡`❁) if you liked this, check out [this tweet](https://twitter.com/featherxs/status/1239788477807349760)!
> 
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